IPL 2016: Gujarat Lions beat Mumbai Indians by 6 wickets at Kanpur, Stars and Flops
IPL 2016: Gujarat Lions beat Mumbai Indians by 6 wickets at Kanpur, Stars and Flops
Gujarat Lions (GL) secured their place in playoffs of Indian Premier League 2016 with their ninth win of the tournament. They beat defending champions Mumbai Indians (MI) by six wickets at Kanpur.
After winning the toss, once again GL skipper Suresh Raina invited Rohit Sharma-led MI to bat first. After tumbling start, newcomer Nitish Rana played a scintillating knock of 36-ball 70, which included seven fours and four sixes. MI were three down for 45 and from there on Rana and Jos Buttler added 75 runs between them, which proved to be crucial for their team, as this helped in posting a good total on board. After Rana and Buttler, no other player could even touch 10-run mark and fell short of 20-30 runs in posting a big total against a strong batting side GL. Praveen Kumar and Dwayne Bravo bowled excellently as they took two wickets and remained very economical throughout their spell. Dhawal Kulkarni and Dwayne Smith too scalped couple of wickets each in their name but were quite expensive.
Coming to chase, GL opener Aaron Finch went back to pavilion in the very second ball of the match, trapped by Vinay Kumar. Brendon McCullum and Raina didn’t let MI bowlers take any wicket for next nine overs and collected 96 runs together. McCullum departed after scoring an amazing 27-ball 48 on by Harbhajan Singh. From there on, captain Raina continued to score maintaining the asking rate. His new partner at crease — Dinesh Karthik got out and was then joined by Smith. Raina too got out after completing his half-century and then Smith and Ravindra Jadeja ensured victory for their team in the 18th over of the match. Jasprit Bumrah, Mitchell McClenaghan, Krunal Pandya and Harbhajan were quite expensive in their bowling, while Vinay was the only exceptional.
Turning Point: After the fall of first of GL opener Aaron Finch, MI bowlers couldn’t continue to keep the pressure on Brendon McCullum and Suresh Raina. In reply both McCullum and Raina added 96 runs at a very brisk rate which turned the whole match in favour of GL.
Brief Scores:
Gujarat Lions 173 for 4 in 20 overs [Suresh Raina 58 (36), Brendon McCullum 48 (27); Vinay Kumar 3-1-17-2, Harbhajan Singh 4-0-36-1] beat to Mumbai Indians 172 for 8 in 20 overs [Nitish Rana 70 (36); Dwayne Bravo 4-0-22-2, Praveen Kumar 4-0-24-2, Dwayne Smith 4-0-37-2] by 6 wickets.